


A Door Once Opened

by still_lycoris



Category: X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) - Fandom
Genre: Age Difference, Denial of Feelings, Doubt, F/M, Jean is seventeen, Mental Link, Seduction, Teacher-Student Relationship, Telepathy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-12
Updated: 2016-06-12
Packaged: 2018-07-14 16:05:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7178888
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/still_lycoris/pseuds/still_lycoris
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle with Apocalypse, Charles and Jean realise their minds are still linked together. Although Jean is excited, Charles is horrified and attempts to break the bond. But some bonds are not so easily broken ...</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Door Once Opened

The silly thing was that Jean realised something was wrong almost immediately. She just ignored it.

Things were just too traumatic for her to spend time looking at something vague in her mind. Everyone around her was exhausted, frightened, in pain. Even the Professor was obviously unwell, although he was trying to pretend that he was quite all right for the sake of the people around him, as he always did.

Jean was rather surprised that the others seemed fooled by his performance. Sometimes when they were close together, she felt almost as though he didn’t have any shields up at all. He was almost bubbling with residual pain and distress. She was even catching stray thoughts about his hair loss, about needing to look after Erik, about what the children would think when they saw him. It was disconcerting – she wasn’t quite used to seeing the Professor as a human in that way. It seemed only good manners not to mention it though. Soon, he would improve, be back to being himself again, she was sure of that.

Besides, there were other things to think about. Her power was new, different, glittering inside her and she needed to get used to it. She wasn’t frightened of it, not any more – at least, not really. The feel of it was shocking and she didn’t know quite what to make of all of it yet.

It was perhaps no surprise that she didn’t notice one other difference in it.

She got a proper hint of what had happened when the Professor said he would guide her and Erik as they rebuilt the mansion. She expected it to be difficult for their minds to connect again but it was strangely easy, almost like opening a door. And although the Professor was only supposed to be sending the necessary information, Jean felt as though there was something else too. As the information arrived to her, she felt as though she was being pulled closer, deeper. She could feel something at the back of the established connection, something big and fascinating that she wanted to touch …

She held back. Quite _why_ a part of the Professor was so open, she wasn’t sure but perhaps he was still tired, finding this all a little harder than expected. She wouldn’t offend him by prying.

Afterwards, she and Erik walked through the mansion together, checking their own work, fixing little things here and there. Charles had left their minds now, trusting them not to do anything silly. It was odd though, even though he wasn’t there, Jean still found herself staring into odd corners and thinking about things she that she probably shouldn’t know; how Charles would miss things the way things had been, the little marks and scuffs from childhood, the memories of sitting there with Raven when they were children, of watching TV with Hank …

“Are you all right?”

Erik was giving her an odd look. Jean quickly smiled.

“Yes, Erik. Sorry, I was just thinking.”

Erik’s look didn’t change. In fact, it seemed to intensify. Jean got the feeling that he was scrutinizing her and she wasn’t completely sure she liked it. Erik was a very intense man and his mental shields were impressive, even without his helmet. She got less from him than she got from most people.

“You’re the only one who does that,” he said, conversationally.

“Only one who does what?” Jean asked, resisting the urge to prod at his mind a little. If someone had good mental shields, it was rude to tackle them unless you had a good reason to and she didn’t.

“Calls me Erik. The other children call me Magneto or Mr Lehnsherr or avoid addressing me at all. You call me Erik as if we were old friends.”

Jean could feel herself blushing. Now that Erik – Mr Lehnsherr – had pointed it out, it _did_ sound kind of rude. It was just that it had felt kind of right to call him Erik somehow. As though she should.

“You’re a powerful telepath,” Erik said. He sounded thoughtful but Jean still didn’t know what he was thinking. He had looked away from her now and was examining a banister, seeing if it was secure enough. Jean swallowed, feeling awkward. She felt like she wanted Erik to like her, although now she was thinking about it, she didn’t know quite why. Just that it seemed important to have his regard.

She suddenly felt uneasy, really uneasy for the first time since Cairo. There were things in her mind that she didn’t understand, there was something that wasn’t quite right and for once, it wasn’t just her strange powers. There was something else. Something new.

She resisted the urge to run straight to the Professor. He was busy and besides, he’d want to know that she’d tried exploring with her powers first. If she jut went to him like a child, he’d probably shake his head at her, tell her to go and try for herself first. He always liked them to try for themselves first so Jean would.

She waited until evening before investigating. The Professor had taught her a lot of meditation techniques while she’d been at the school and Jean decided to sit the floor with her legs crossed. She closed her eyes and began to take slow, deep breaths, waiting until they felt natural before she focused on the centre of her power. It glimmered behind her eyelids; flickering feathers of flame. Jean wasn’t nearly as afraid of it now. It had come to her when she’d needed it, helped her, helped Charles. She felt like she could trust it.

She followed it deeper and instantly saw what was wrong. In the midst of her usual flames was a pool, a deep, cool-looking pool of golden water that she had never seen before. Curiously, Jean touched it and instantly felt herself falling forwards, being wrapped in it. Before she could panic, she was somewhere else, some _one_ else. Erik was kneeling in front of her, crying with harsh desperate sobs and she was reaching out to hold him, to pull him close and tell him that he was going to be all right …

_Jean!_

The Professor’s mental voice was furious and she felt him push at her. Shocked, Jean leaped back through her power into her own body, gasping for breath. She had just fallen into the Professor’s mind, far more quickly and easily than ought to have been possible. Not only that, she had done it by travelling through _herself_. Not by reaching outwards but by reaching _inwards_.

Was it another power that she had manifested? Another thing she would need to learn to control, to understand? And she’d accidentally upset the Professor, intruded on something really private between him and Erik …

She felt the touch of the Professor’s mind in hers, gentle and apologetic for his anger, even though she felt she had deserved it.

_It’s all right, Jean. I know you didn’t mean to. Go to bed. We’ll talk in the morning._

_Yes_ she sent back and slowly got into bed, wondering what they would talk about. Would the Professor be able to help her? Did he know what had happened?

Why did being a mutant always have to be so confusing?

Her dreams were still unsettled, although they were no longer rattling the house. Now they were strange and tangled and felt almost as though parts of them were nothing to do with her at all. As though they were something she was watching and experiencing something that someone else was creating.

She found it almost impossible to eat any breakfast in the morning. Her stomach felt queasy and she kept thinking about her upcoming interview with the Professor. He had sounded like he wasn’t going to be angry with her but she wouldn’t blame him if he were. How had she done that? How had that _happened?_

Charles was waiting for her in his study. Jean couldn’t help thinking that he looked a little tired, as though his own night hadn’t been all that brilliant either. He smiled at her and moved around his desk so he was in front of her when she sat down.

“All right, Jean. Can you tell me what happened?”

“It was an accident, Professor. There was … I found this … space in my power and when I touched it, I couldn’t control it at all. I found myself with you, riding along and I’m so sorry, I know it was an intrusion but it really was an accident.”

“I believe you,” the Professor said reassuringly. “May I take a look?”

“Of course.”

He reached out and touched her temples with gentle fingers. Jean knew he could do it quite easily without but they had discussed it once and the Professor had told her that he preferred that physical contact.

“It makes people feel easier about what you can do. It makes them feel safer with you. You should never underestimate how important that is.”

Jean couldn’t say that she minded the quirk. In fact, she liked the Professor’s gentle touches. It was a little embarrassing, although she supposed it shouldn’t be – she knew for a fact that most of the students had crushes on the Professor of one type or another. He was just so … _kind_. And the fact that he was gorgeous didn’t help. At least Jean was able to hide it – most of the other students simply had to accept the fact that there was a possibility that Charles would read their fleeting fantasies at one point or another and politely ignore them.

_All right_ he murmured now. _Guide me, Jean. Show me the way …_

She closed her eyes and sank with him into her feathery fires. It was easier than ever to find the strange pool that lurked there with the Professor at her side.

_That’s strange. That’s almost like my own power …_

The Professor’s voice was puzzled. He touched the pool, just as Jean had. Jean felt it, a ripple that ran through everything, glowing and growing and _blinding_ …

And suddenly she wasn’t in her power any more, she was in a blinding gold world and it was filled with everything that was _Charles_ ; his thoughts and ideas and memories and she was _part_ of them, she could touch every single one of them and view them and feel them. She could see his current confusion and a dawning understanding of what had happened to them but it was barely registering because there was so much else to see, there was so much to experience. She saw how Charles had struggled with the things that had always frightened her, she saw him as a child alone in a huge house, she saw him meeting Raven for the first time, she saw his hope and happiness when they began to bring other mutants together, his love for Erik, she saw his sadness when Raven left him, she saw his despair when his school closed, his self-destruction with only Hank to try and keep him alive ...

_Don’t look, don’t look at that …_

But it was almost impossible not to because it was _there_ and Jean tried to pull herself away but it was almost like it was _her_ now and she could feel Charles looking at her too, at her childhood and her fears and the embarrassing things that she would never have told him normally and she was ashamed but she felt a flood of warmth, of reassurance and Charles was whispering to her how special she was, how powerful and skilled and amazing and beautiful, she was so beautiful it was _wonderful_ because it was something she could never have with anything else, it was a true connection of the minds, she was Charles and he was her – or would be if he weren’t fighting it, struggling against her …

_Stop, stop, Jean, we have to stop this, please …_

_Why?_ she asked wonderingly. _Charles, please … let me see, let me see more …_

_It’s a bad idea …_

His voice was weak, his resistance weaker. He wanted this as much as she did and she caught at him eagerly, pulling him into her power, wanting to soar with him, wanting to _fly_. She was dimly aware of their physical bodies still, of Charles’s fingers still pressed against her head, of the fact that she’d fallen forward almost onto his lap and how she wanted to be there, she wanted to touch him physically as well as mentally, wanted _all_ of him. She heard him moan and suddenly there was a different set of memories for her to swim in, memories of Charles being kissed, being touched by women and men from his past, his body pressed against theirs, the pleasure of it, the heat and fire of sex and need and love and she wanted it, she wanted it so much, she wanted more than the memories and Charles’s beautiful red mouth was there in the physical world and how could she do anything but kiss it and he was kissing her back and she felt the sexual spark that went through him as their minds tangled deeper and deeper, becoming one, beautiful whole – 

_**NO!** _

She was thrown backwards, mentally and physically. It was like being hit with a bucket of icy water and she would have fallen from her chair if she hadn’t had enough wherewithal to catch herself telekinetically. She was sweating, breath coming in gasps. Charles had moved back from her, his hand over his mouth, his expression appalled. He was as sweaty as she was, just as out of breath.

“Oh God,” he said. “Oh God, Jean …”

“I … ” Jean didn’t know what to say. Her mind was still in turmoil, still filled with chunks of Charles’s, almost physically. She stared at him and he stared back at her and she tried to sort out what had happened.

“It was when you let me in to defeat Apocalypse, wasn’t it?” she said.

“Yes. It opened a door, created a link … but we can close it, I’m sure we can, with work and time … ” 

“I don’t want to close it!”

She blurted the words out without thinking about them. Charles shook his head.

“No. No, Jean, no. It’s not ... it’s not right to have something like that open between us. It’s not safe.”

“Not safe? I saved your life with it, I could do it again if it were ever needed, you could save _me_. And it was … that was …” 

“That wasn’t real!” he said sharply. “Jean, I understand that right now, you’re feeling … high from that but it was a mistake, it was … it was something that we mustn’t ever repeat, do you understand me?”

“But it was _good_ ,” Jean said. “You … you liked it. I know you did Professor, I was _there_.”

“That’s not the point!” Charles sounded almost angry now. “That’s not the point at all, that was … that was too much, too far. You’re seventeen years old and I’m fifty-one and that was inappropriate for both of us and I will _not_ allow it to happen again, do you understand me?”

“I don’t care about your age!” Jean shouted back at him, standing up. “That wasn’t about age, that wasn’t about – ”

“That was a _mistake_ brought about by necessity in a time of crisis! There is _nothing_ good about it, nor any reason to keep it open and alive! I will close the gate and I expect you to do your best to block your side too. In time, it will become naturally dead and we will be able to forget this nonsense. Do you understand me?”

She’d never heard him sound like this before. Never heard him so angry, so stressed. And Jean could still feel him, feel his mind seething with shock and horror and beneath that, a burning spark of longing that she had enflamed when she’d kissed him …

“Professor - _Charles_ \- please. Please don’t close it, I … shouldn’t we explore it? You always said I should explore my powers, shouldn’t we see what we could do with this? I know you – ”

“You have no idea what I want,” Charles said and his voice was colder than she’d ever heard it before. “Nor will you. Now go to your lessons at once, please. There’s nothing more to say.”

“Charles – ”

“Get out.”

She felt as though a wall had slammed down between them. His eyes were blank, his face a mask. Slowly, Jean stumbled to her feet, looking at him pleadingly for any sign at all that he might soften, that he might hint that he wasn’t so unbelievably angry with her, that they might be able to fix something …

But Charles didn’t soften. And when Jean left the study, she felt as though the wall had only gotten stronger. She risked dipping into her power and she saw that the pool had now turned black and uninviting. When she touched it, it was like rubber.

He had sealed it.

She had been banished.

And Jean felt cold.

*

Life went on.

Erik – Mr Lehnsherr – left them, to the relief of some and the dismay of others. Jean knew that he would come back, even if just to visit. She had felt it in him, supposed that Charles had too. She didn’t know. Charles was not speaking to her.

Or rather, that wasn’t true. He spoke to her. He couldn’t not, he was her professor and she was his student. She went to his classes and he smiled at her as he smiled at the others and he taught her and he called on her no more or less than he might call on any of the others. He praised her when she gave a good answer, gently corrected her when it was required. On the surface, you wouldn’t see that there was anything even slightly wrong between them at all.

But he never spoke to her privately. Never let his mind so much as brush against hers. And the one time Jean reached out her mind to his, she was met with a solid wall of what felt like ice. When she looked at his space in her power, it was a cold, raw place that she shied back from.

Charles had blocked her utterly, as he had said he would. And he clearly didn’t intend to change things.

Jean was surprised at how lost she felt. She found that she was behaving oddly, losing track of her thoughts in class, feeling queasy at mealtimes, sleeping badly at nights. She tried to hide it, knowing that it would be almost impossible to explain to anybody without telling them what had happened – and she couldn’t possibly tell them what had happened. Charles would probably expel her for that.

Not that Charles was looking very healthy either. She was pretty sure he’d lost weight even before she heard Doctor McCoy thinking about it. He was thinking a lot of uneasy thoughts about Charles. About how Charles wasn’t eating properly, wasn’t sleeping properly. About how sad and pale he looked, even though he was trying to hide it around the students. About how Doctor McCoy was afraid they were going back to _that_ time and oh God, what if that happened, what if, what _if?_

She stopped trying to read him after that. It was too upsetting, particularly as she had _seen_ what Charles had been like in that time, seen Doctor McCoy trying to help him, knew what was at stake if Charles fell back into that dark, dark place. But what could she do? It didn’t matter what she learned. Charles didn’t want her to help. No matter what was wrong with him – what was wrong with them _both_ – he wanted her to stay away from him. Was it fair for her to fight that? Shouldn’t she try to respect his wishes, even if she thought they were wrong? He was right, he was a lot older than her – old enough to be her father, literally. He had done so much, things that she might never do, however old she got. People would judge him for being the dirty old man that seduced his student, no matter what she said about it, even if they kept it only to that wonderful telepathic world that they could create together – because nobody would understand that. He would have to read everybody’s thoughts all the time, know what they were thinking of him.

It was his life too. He had the right to decide how that life went, didn’t he?

But she was still sad. She couldn’t help being sad. Because she _wanted_ and she knew that what they could share would be glorious and beautiful and good – if only they could enjoy it.

She was sitting outside, reading when she suddenly felt Mystique’s sharp, bright mind close to hers. She liked Mystique’s mind. It was organised, practical. Right now, it felt purposeful, which meant the woman had deliberately come to find her.

“Hello Jean,” she said, sitting next to her. Jean smiled back, a little uncertainly.

“Hi.”

“Jean, I assume you’ve realised that there’s something wrong with Charles.”

Jean dipped her head, hoping that she wasn’t blushing or looking in any way embarrassed. She knew that Mystique just meant that Jean was a telepath and would probably have realised but she couldn’t help thinking for a moment it meant something else, something far more embarrassing …

“I … he shields himself very well from me,” she said, trying not to sound distressed. Mystique would pick up on it and pick up on it quickly and Jean didn’t want to try and deflect her.

“But Hank doesn’t. And I don’t always. And besides, all the students are picking up on it now. He’s pale, he’s thinner, he isn’t eating right and he’s not behaving the way they’re used to.”

“Yes, I’d noticed that.”

Mystique was staring at her. Jean kept her face as smooth as she could. She could sense suspicion in Mystique’s mind. She knew there was something else going on, even if she didn’t know what.

“Hank asked me to talk to him,” Mystique said. “He’s fretting a great deal about Charles’s state of mind, as I’m sure you know.”

“Yes,” Jean said quietly, thinking of Doctor McCoy’s steady unhappiness. “Yes, I do.”

“Charles wouldn’t tell me anything,” Mystique continued. “At least, not at first. He told that Hank’s check up had revealed that nothing was physically wrong so I asked him if anything was mentally wrong and he went rather quiet after that. He said he was using energy and then said it wasn’t something a non-telepath could understand. Which is why I’m talking to you.”

“I … I don’t know if he’ll talk to me,” Jean said, feeling slightly on the spot. “I’m still just his student, he won’t want me poking around in his mind like that.”

“But you could try. You could ask him. Perhaps even give him some energy, if that’s where the problem lies.”

“Of course,” Jean said dully. She wondered what Charles would say to such a request. He’d probably be angry with her for even talking about it. Or worse, he might just be sad, might just think that he’d let her down by getting sick from the energy expenditure …

“You know,” Mystique said, her tone almost conversational. “Charles has always had a thing about protecting people, whether they need it or not. And he won’t always listen the first time when they tell him they don’t need that protection. Sometimes, you have to push him to help him reach what’s best for _everyone_.”

She stood up and walked away, leaving Jean alone again. Jean stared after her, her mouth very dry. Mystique’s thoughts had been too contained for her to tell if Mystique knew or was just guessing. But her words were going round and round in Jean’s head and they were giving her a new sense of purpose.

Charles _needed_ her. He’d needed her before and he needed her now. Only he was trying to hide it and if she was going to help him, she would have to break through the barriers that he’d put up.

That night, she took a long bath, then brushed her hair out until it was dry and hanging around her. Then she put on a robe and waited until the minds in the mansion were mostly silent before quietly walking to Charles’s room.

He wasn’t sleeping. She wasn’t even slightly surprised by that. Quietly, she used her telekinesis to open his door and stepped inside, closing it behind her.

Charles was sitting on the bed, staring at a book. He looked at her and blinked.

“Jean?”

“Charles,” she said and was pleased that she didn’t sound scared or worried or even nervous. She just sounded … herself.

“You shouldn’t be in my room this late, Jean.”

He said it roughly and she thought there was a tremble there. His mind was blocked from hers and she hated it. She hated it so much. It shouldn’t be that way. She wouldn’t _let_ it be that way.

“You’ve been using all your energy to try and block what we created. It’s making you sick.”

“I’m not sick,” he said tiredly. “Just … I’ll get used to it, it just needs time, that’s all. Jean, please … ”

Jean slid her robe off. She was totally naked underneath it and with anyone else, she knew that she would have felt embarrassed but even now, she didn’t feel that with Charles. Even though he was looking shocked, she knew that he’d already seen far more of her than this, would see more of her still if things went the way that she hoped.

“Jean,” Charles said weakly. “Please … ”

“I don’t want to stop,” she whispered. “You don’t want me to stop. So don’t _ask_ me to stop.”

She climbed onto his bed. Charles was staring at her, his breath coming in slight gasps. When she moved closer, he shivered and he shook his head slightly, trying to turn his face away from her.

“Jean, we mustn’t, this is wrong.”

“No,” she said, utterly confident. “No, it isn’t.”

She kissed him and he kissed her back with a tiny groan, his hands coming up the tangle in her hair. Before, the connection of the minds had been so overwhelming that she’d barely been aware of how it felt to kiss him but now she had time to savour the way his lips moved against hers, the way her body reacted when her tongue touched his. She wrapped her arms around his neck and Charles moved suddenly, catching hold of her hips, pulling her closer to him. His hands stroked up and down her back and Jean tried not to tremble.

_Charles_ she whispered, nudging at his mind. _Please. Let me in._

_Oh God …_

And then his mind was open and they were flowing into each other, thoughts and emotions rippling and mixing together, enhancing, heightening, soaring. Jean found herself clinging to Charles’s shoulders, almost afraid that she was going to fall, even though there was nowhere to fall to but she felt so high, so wild …

_I won’t let you fall, darling_ Charles’s voice was warm. _I won’t let you fall anywhere._

He kissed her mouth, her cheek, her hair, her neck. He knew when she liked the kisses because her mind told him, his mind told her that he wanted her to stroke his neck so she did and he shuddered and she felt pleasure blossom inside him. She dipped into that pleasure, encouraged it and Charles’s fingers dug into her back, pressing her closer against him, his pleasure enhancing hers in a glorious feedback.

_I want you._

Did she think that or did he? She wasn’t sure any more. She heard Charles moan, felt his hands on her breasts and trembled. Her powers were growing within her, she could feel her own fire budding and felt a stab of fear, what if she burned him, what if, what if – ?

_You can burn me any time, darling. Don’t be afraid of it._

_You were afraid before._

_I was wrong. Embrace it. Let’s both embrace it._

They were lying on the bed now, his body under her hands. She relished it, the muscles in his shoulders, his arms, his chest. She could feel his appreciation of her body too, his pleasure in touching her skin, of her freckles, of her curves. She was losing track of who was touching who, of if she was Jean or Charles or some strange amalgamation of the two beings, she didn’t know who she was, didn’t know, didn’t care, she just wanted their bodies and minds together, wanted every single minute of this.

She wasn’t sure when she came, when he came or even how many times it happened to either of them. She just slowly became aware that they were lying together, Charles’s hands in her hair again, their bodies still cuddled up together. Their minds were separate again and yet linked, beautifully, intrinsically linked.

_Please don’t ever block me out again_ she begged and she felt a wave of emotions from him; confusion, distress, desire, hope. He didn’t want to block her, he wanted this just as much as she did and when she curled a tendril of power around his mind, she felt him shiver with pleasure, even now when they were both sated and sleepy.

“Jean,” he said out-loud. “Jean, darling … ”

“You can’t deny that it’s real,” she said, lifting her head to look at him. “You can’t tell me that you didn’t like it, that stopping this hasn’t been hurting you.”

She felt his weary acceptance of that fact, knew that he’d been hating what had been happening to him, that he wouldn’t necessarily have been able to keep that block going anyway. But she also felt his uncertainty, this fear that he had accidentally ruined her life, stolen her from a normal existence because of what he had done by allowing her mind into his.

_I’m a mutant, Charles. Normal isn’t really an option_.

He laughed and kissed her hair, then tilted her face up so she was looking at his.

“All right. All right, Jean. But I … I won’t be faithful to you, you understand me? And I don’t want you to be faithful to me. This isn’t, this can’t ever be a relationship in that way. If you meet someone you want, please take that opportunity, be with them, love them. Because you can and you should.”

She nodded sleepily, burrowing herself into his shoulder. His arms wrapped around her, her mind cradled his. Here, she was safe and she was warm and everything was all right. They were _both_ safe and warm.

_I love you_ she murmured and felt a beautiful, golden flicker in reply, better than any words ever could have been. It was understanding, acceptance, fellowship. It was acknowledgement of a simple truth and returning of that truth.

The door was open now. And Jean never wanted to see it closed again.


End file.
